About Me

Gretchen Schuldt is a writer, fiscal policy analyst, former reporter, current editor of milwaukeerising.net/wordpress and co-chair of Citizens Allied for Sane Highways, a coalition opposing freeway expansion in Milwaukee.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Remembering Busalacchi and the Miller Park roof

I went to Watertown Plank Rd. to watch the governor sell whatever piece of his soul he has left to the road builders by endorsing an early start to the Zoo Interchange reconstruction project.

Secretary of Transportation Frank Busalacchi was there and it seemed strange to me, even after all this time, that Doyle entrusts these huge construction projects to the one of the guys -- if not the guy -- most responsible for pushing and promoting the disaster called the Miller Park roof. Here's what he said in 2001, before it became so very, very clear what a very, very bad deal the Busalacchi Miller Park gang got for the rest of us.

"There is absolutely no concern" that Miller Park won't be ready for baseball at the end of March, board member Frank Busalacchi said during a tour of the facility Thursday.The $400 million, retractable-roof stadium is closer to completion than were the retractable-roof ballparks in Seattle and Phoenix three months before their scheduled openings, Busalacchi said."We're in great shape," he said.

Busalacchi said, "You have a lot of sidewalk superintendents who really don't understand what happens on a project of this size."

Asked what, if anything, worried him the most about the possibility of not finishing on time, Busalacchi said: "I'm not concerned that the roof is going to work. I'm very, very confident. The weather is something we can't control, but I feel very confident we're going to be ready."